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Bye-bye beautiful birds

Ghost of Gone Birds has pulled in a horde of high profile artists and musicians to expose the stories of our lost, but not forgotten, feathered friends. From the famed Dodo, through the lesser known Guam Flycatcher, to the near-extinct Albatross, the exhibition combines beauty with more hard-hitting images that really bring home the devastation wrecked on these fragile creatures, often as a direct result of human behaviour. We’ve put together our selection to give you a taste of what’s on offer.

The multimedia exhibition runs at London’s Rochelle School until 23 November, and there is a live performance by Doves frontman Jimi Goodwin and the Bird Effect Ensemble at London’s Rich Mix on 10 November. For more information, check out our CultureLab exhibition review, complete with audio from Goodwin himself.

Double-banded Argus

Only one feather from a double-banded argus is known to exist, held in a collection at London’s Natural History Museum. It has been suggested that the bird cannot be counted as a species in its own right, as this lone feather could just an abnormality from a crested argus. Nonetheless, the IUCN lists the species as extinct.

(Image: Angie Lewin)

Pallas’s Cormorant

Believed to have gone extinct in the 1850s, Pallas’s Cormorants lived on Bering Island off the east coast of Russia. Living mostly on the ground and having little aerial prowess, their fate was sealed when humans colonised the island in 1826.

(Image: Ralph Steadman)

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King Island Emu

A familiar story, this flightless bird’s habitat was limited to a single island – King Island off the coast of Australia. Standing at a tiny (for an emu) 1.4 metres fully grown, its extinction has been put down to being hunted for food by sealers. It is possible that the last pair alive were in the care of Napoleon Bonaparte’s wife Empress Joséphine de Beauharnais, until their death in 1822.

(Image: Harriet Mead)

Bishop’s ‘O’O

This little bird was found on the Hawaiian islands of Molokai and Maui. Despite an unconfirmed sighting in 1981, the Bishop’s ‘O’O is still listed as extinct. Measuring around 30 cm, the bird reportedly fed on lobelia nectar.

(Image: Ben Newman)

Albatross

The IUCN lists 22 species of albatross from vulnerable to critically endangered. This poster by Peter Hodgson highlights the crux of BirdLife International’s Albatross campaign – populations are nearing extinction because of deaths caused when the birds accidentally eat fishing hooks left in bait or discarded after fishing trips.